That's interesting; I've never read any reference to ice before. I'd guess it wasn't common at all. I can say that at that time the Ohio River froze every winter and ice was harvested and stored in Cincinnati and Louisville and I'd guess some rivers in Tennessee also froze so I suppose it would have been technically possible to get ice at least into the upper south. However, it would require lots of insulation (hay and sawdust were commonly used in warehouses) and wagons and would have been bulky. I'll be curious to see if others who are more widely read than me can offer any info.

Emilio brings up ice a few times in his book. Just to remind you, he commanded a company in the 54th and was acting commander on several occassions. The regiment spent most of its career in South Carolina.

The ice trade was a major business in the 19th century. Ice houses were built beside large and small ponds and lakes all across the northern states, and teams would go out every winter to saw the ice into blocks, and pack them in straw and sawdust (they understood insulation), for shipment all around the world. By the mid 1850s, over 150,000 tons of ice was being shipped out of Boston alone, to scores of distant countries, including South Africa, Brazil, Australia, Japan, and China. A British merchant in Singapore in August, could sip a drink cooled by ice cut from a New Hampshire pond in January.

The Civil War interrupted that trade somewhat, and production dipped during the 1860s. Shipments to the American South were among the most profitable during the antebellum years. But, ice still went south, largely to army camps and hospitals -- not in as large quantities, but a market was there. Military hospitals in Washington allowed patients one pound of ice per day during the summer months. [see: Medical Uses of Ice]

A sense of the size of the trade is the following notice from the March 1903 issue of the trade journal Ice and Refrigeration:

This is a postwar image from the Hudson River, but ice barges like this also plied the Mississippi by the 1850s, carrying 400 to 800 tons of ice, The masts are derricks for loading and unloading the 100-400 pound blocks. The bottom sketch details the windmill-powered bilge pump that controlled the melting ice water. Packed tight, and kept dry, the loss by melting could be kept to under 5%, even in the summer months.

An interesting topic, which shows the importance of such a simple thing to soldiers, especially the wounded, who needed it the most. I had read about the importance it packing it just right for shipping.

Ice was used in hospitals to control bleeding. So it was more important than just something to cool drinks or preserve food. I can imagine foraging parties scattered everywhere appropriating ice from local ice houses. But I've never seen an order for it specifically. (On a side note, when Empress Eugenie discovered that French troops in Mexico couldn't get ice for medical purposes, she banned ice in drinks at court to raise awarness.)